After examining Pennsylvania’s new congressional map to make sure it fairly preserved minorities’ voting rights in the Philadelphia area, Common Cause announced late Thursday that it found no violations of the Voting Rights Act.

Common Cause lobbied for fixing the “extreme gerrymander” of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts under the 2011 map but earlier Thursday was concerned about the replacement issued Monday by the state Supreme Court. .

Common Cause Pennsylvania Executive Director Micah Sims said earlier that lawyers were studying the new map for “possible issues.”

In later announcing there would be no suit, Sims said, “We thank the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for forging an electoral map out of the ashes of the legislature’s failure, so the people can once again vote in congressional districts that are fair and responsive. This map will finally allow the voters to choose their representatives and not the other way around.”

Citing the Constitution’s Elections Clause, Pennsylvania Republicans on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the map, which likely would reduce the Republicans’ 12-5 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation (one seat, which was most recently held by a Republican, is vacant).

State Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and eight Republican congressmen on Thursday also filed an immediate injunction in federal court in Harrisburg. They also cited a violation of the Elections Clause, essentially arguing that the state Supreme Court usurped the state Legislature’s authority to draw the map of congressional districts.

Common Cause and the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP were looking into whether the new map diluted minority voting power by creating districts that put large numbers of minorities in one district. That could result in “wasted” votes and also reduce minority power in neighboring districts.

Common Cause focused primarily on the new 2nd and 3rd districts, which are entirely within Philadelphia; the 5th District, covering parts of Philadelphia and Chester, Montgomery and Delaware counties; the 1st District, covering parts of Bucks and Montgomery counties; and the 4th District, covering parts of Berks and Montgomery counties.

“We have to do our due diligence,” Sims said.

The NAACP did not return calls for comment.

The state’s high court ordered the new map after declaring the one drawn in 2011 an unconstitutional gerrymander.

Under the previous map, Philadelphia had a district in which blacks made up the majority of the voting-age population, University of Chicago professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos said. The old map also had a possible “coalition” district — one where the minority groups could combine to create a majority, he said.

“The old map had one clear black-majority district and one possible coalition district, and that's exactly what the new map has too,” he said. “I don't see any plausible basis for a Voting Rights Act claim.”

It’s not enough for a party to claim that a map in a racially mixed area reduces minority voter numbers by several percentage points, University of Florida professor Michael McDonald said.

If a suit were filed, he said, “the question before the court would be: Is the minority community able to elect a candidate of their choice?”

Minority representation could go below 40 percent and still meet Voting Rights Act standards if it can be shown that white voters formed coalitions with minorities to elect minority candidates, McDonald said. Federal law, he said, does not establish “a magic threshold.”

Florida had a similar case in 2015, when the Florida Supreme Court approved a redrawn map, McDonald noted. Its map was drawn by the League of Women Voters and Democratic supporters and approved by a judge after the Florida Legislature, like Pennsylvania’s, failed to agree on a map. The map survived a Voting Rights challenge.

And with the U.S. Supreme Court already having once rejected a GOP complaint about the new map, McDonald said legal attempts to block it at this point are “an extreme long shot. … It’s like you’re throwing up a Hail Mary but you don’t have any receivers in the end zone.”

Late Thursday, Common Cause Pennsylvania announced that after further analysis, they have found no violations of the Voting Rights Act in the new congressional map issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Feb. 19.